This Week In Quotes: April 29 – May 5

For every person who goes to market seeking to purchase snake-oil and magic beans, there is at least one person who will set up a stand and agree to sell him such products.– Ace

There’s much that’s unrealistic about pledging eternal monogamy, but sexually open relationships don’t work for a whole lot of people. — Amy Alkon

If anyone can prove that I believe American special forces did not kill Osama bin Laden, I will donate one million dollars to ThinkProgress. — Andrew Breitbart

Still, I know some of you are concerned about when the Navy SEALs raided Osama’s compound, whether he was then shot in the face in accordance with Islamic tradition. Well, don’t worry; he absolutely was. The very last thing anyone wanted was for Osama to think while he was being killed, “They’re doing this to me because I’m Muslim!” Because, again, that would definitely not be true. So great care was taken, and he was shot in the face in a religiously respectful way. — Frank J. Fleming

Obama the law professor can assassinate bin Laden in Pakistan, dump his body in the ocean, and with first-person emphasis boast of our brilliant mission in a way Bush the Texan could not get away with–in the same manner that killing the son of Qaddafi, and the effort to kill Qaddafi himself, are not really forbidden targeted assassinations under Obama, and in the manner that GuantÃ¡namo, tribunals, renditions, preventive detentions, Predators, wiretaps, and intercepts that so bothered Senator Obama and others are now deemed essential. — Victor Davis Hanson

Death ends legal issues, and in our postmodern, out-of-sight, out-of-mind world it is apparently as acceptable to act as judge, jury, and executioner of terrorist leaders (and rogue leaders like Qaddafi) as it is considered illegal and immoral to detain or water-board them. Killing bin Laden and his son, or Qaddafi’s son, is permissible, it seems, as long as we cite the circumstances of an ongoing war or a firefight, and maintain that we are not doing what we are in fact doing. — Victor Davis Hanson

So when does Seal Unit 6, or whatever it’s called, drop in on George Bush? Bush was responsible for a lot more death, innocent death, than bin Laden. Wasn’t he, or am I wrong here? — Mike Malloy

The total present value of payments expected under Social Security and Medicare beyond what is expected to be collected under current tax laws is about $100 trillion. One way to put that amount of money in context is to note that it is about twice the amount of all the net private assets that exist in America today.

To answer cw’s question directly, the best back-of-envelope estimate is that meeting this unfunded portion of our Social Security and Medicare commitments would require roughly an immediate 80 percent increase in federal income taxes, sustained forever. — that’s not going to work this time

The day is coming where the black community is going to play the race card one time too many, and American society is going to hand it right back to them and say, “Sorry — that card has been declined.” In fact, I think we began accelerating toward that day last summer, when the NAACP squandered its civil rights legacy on a hunt for racist bogeymen in the Tea Party movement.

Everyday Americans, who categorically reject racism and discrimination and never practiced either in their lives, were offended at being called something they were not, and they began to see the race card for what it is — a cynical ploy by white liberals and black elites to keep black Americans in a perpetual state of bitterness and unforgiveness. —Ron Miller

Donald Trump is here tonight. Now, I know that he’s taken some flak lately but no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like, ‘Did we fake the moon landing?’ ‘What really happened on Roswell?’ And ‘Where are Biggie and Tupac? — Barack Obama

Brian, in the intelligence business you work from a lot of sources of information and that was true here… It’s a little difficult to say it was due just to one source of information that we got… I think some of the detainees clearly were, you know, they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of these detainees. But I’m also saying that, you know, the debate about whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always going to be an open question. — Leon Panetta

No. I think President Obama should stop campaigning and take care of the country. I think it’s disgusting that everyone two years out is campaigning already. Take care of the f***ing country. — Joan Rivers

Imagine how the American people would react if Al Qaida killed one of our troops…and put photos of the body on the internet. — Mike Rogers

The man who once called the United States “a paper tiger” and issued a fatwa to “kill all Americans” believed that our nation would not strike back if provoked. Today that man, responsible for the deaths of 3,000 Americans on September 11th, Osama bin Laden, is dead. It is an achievement of which our country can be proud. — Donald Rumsfeld

I think that anyone who suggests that enhanced techniques — let’s be blunt, waterboarding, did not produce an enormous amount of valuable intelligence, just isn’t facing the truth. The facts are, a General Mike Hayden came in, he had no connection with waterboarding anybody. He looked at all the evidence and concluded that a major fraction of the intelligence in our country on al-Qaeda came from individuals, the three, only three people who were waterboarded. — Donald Rumsfeld

I am sorry, but if you believe the newest death of OBL, you’re stupid. Just think to yourself—they paraded Saddam’s dead sons around to prove they were dead—why do you suppose they hastily buried this version of OBL at sea? This lying, murderous Empire can only exist with your brainwashed consent—just put your flags away and THINK! — Cindy Sheehan

This is bin Laden’s lamentable victory – he has changed America’s psyche from one that saw violence as a regrettable-if-sometimes-necessary act into one that finds orgasmic euphoria in news of bloodshed. In other words, he’s helped drag us down into his sick nihilism by making us like too many other bellicose societies in history – the ones that aggressively cheer on killing, as long as it is the Bad Guy that is being killed.

…When we lose the sadness part – when all we do is happily scream “USA! USA! USA!” at news of yet more killing in a now unending back-and-forth war – it’s a sign we may be inadvertently letting the monsters win. — David Sirota

My weekend column is about “the debt ceiling” and how, even as the Treasury issues more and more debt, there are fewer and fewer people willing to buy it. I forgot to mention the really startling number. Pimco (which has now dumped US Treasuries) estimated last month that, under QE2, 70 per cent of the US Government’s debt is being bought by the Federal Reserve. In other words, under the 2011 budget, every hour of every day, the federal government spends $188 million it doesn’t have, $130 million of which is “borrowed” from itself. — Mark Steyn

We build a school, we build a road, they blow up the school, we build another school, we build another road they blow them up, we build again, in the meantime we can’t get a f***ing school in Brooklyn…We have nobody in Washington that sits back and said (to the Saudis), you’re not going to raise that f****ing price….Listen you mother f***ers (China) we’re going to tax you 25 percent! — Donald Trump